Handwriting recognition programs generally operate by comparing data generated from handwritten words or characters to stored recognition data (hereinbelow referred to as “reference library”). An attempt is made to correctly interpret the handwritten words or characters and to possibly display the recognized characters on a display device.
In order to increase recognition probability and to reduce computation time, some character recognition methods employ the splitting of the entire character set into a plurality of reduced character sets. Each reduced character set has a reference library and is associated with a specific input area of the digitizer pad. A number of commercially available products make use of this technology, associating one reference library with one input area and another reference library with another, separate input area. For example, in the Palm™ connected organizer series, commonly referred to as Palm Pilots (commercially available from Palm Inc., Santa Clara, Calif. USA), alphabetic characters are associated with the left part of the digitizer pad and numeric characters are associated with the right part.